'I'm relieved there'll be no more injuries': Pearson says goodbye

Sally Pearson knew she could have pushed through the physical pain of her latest injury, but didn't have the appetite for the mental anguish of fighting her body for a chance at one more Olympics.

Fiercely mentally strong, she also knew her body was telling her something. Her Achilles heel ended up literally being the Achilles heel to her career, a recurrence of the leg injury finally ending the race of one of Australia's greatest athletes, if not the greatest we have seen.

The injury was her sixth this year. It meant she would certainly have missed the World Championships next month in Doha, where she was to return as the reigning world champion. It also meant she would have been fighting for the next year to be fit for the Tokyo Olympics.

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"There's only so many times you can get beaten up by your body. Physically I could have got through it, but mentally getting through that again, I couldn't take it any more, I was fed up. Sometimes your body tells you it's time," she told The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

Australian Olympian Sally Pearson at her retirement announcement in Sydney.Credit:AAP

"When you start begging your body for one more year, it’s not a good sign. Every training session I was like, 'come on body, give me one more year, just one more year,'" she had said earlier at a media conference in Sydney. "Every time I did that, something else happened."

The 32-year-old said the injuries were wearing her down and making her cranky, and not herself.

"The first day I was deciding with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat, that was really hard to take. I knew it was the right decision though," she said. "There’s been quite a few tears the last few evenings, which has been hard but that’s just part of it."

Retirement is all too fresh now to know how she will reflect on her career. She hopes the public will remember her how she regarded herself: as a fierce competitor, with a champion's resilience and determination, who knew how to win.

She raced against athletes who were found to have doped but that offered her no greater satisfaction in retirement to think she competed and won against those who ran with an advantage. To consider that was to spend too much time worrying about your competitors and Pearson never had time to concern herself with them. She was focused on herself and getting herself right.

"I am relieved that my career is over and there'll be no more injuries and no more vomit sessions," she said.

Pearson, who won a silver medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and then gold in London four years later before injury prevented her from defending her title in Rio, said that while she was disappointed she wouldn't be a three-time Olympian, she was happy with her decision.

"There’s nothing I could be disappointed about," she said.

Pearson said the London Olympic gold medal was the emotional high of her career.

"The London Olympics was sensational. It was one of those years I went in there to win. There was no other option for me. There was nothing to do other than to win.

"It was a hard slog after the Olympics with injuries (she shattered her wrist in a fall and had a series of bad soft-tissue injuries).

"The London world champs (in 2017 when she won gold) was the race I am most proud of. I did it on my own, coaching myself and two, I was not supposed to win, I wasn't the fastest person there but I knew how to race and I won. That was my proudest race but London Olympics will always take my heart."

Pearson had been scheduled to compete in Diamond League meets in Europe this northern summer and had to abandon each as injury after injury intervened.

She won gold at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, then after overcoming a shattered wrist and multiple other injuries she made a stunning comeback to claim gold again at the world titles in London in 2017.

She had won silver at the World Championships in Moscow in 2013 and previously claimed Commonwealth gold in Delhi and Glasgow.